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"People online do not want to get sold—a fact documented in a recent study conducted by John Morkes and Jakob Nielsen. The Internet population goes online to find information, Morkes and Nielsen found."

If we accept this premise, then even the most blatantly commercial site managers need to review their copy, and honestly determine if visitors get value when they click through. As much as we may want to shout "Buy my stuff!!!", or say "We are the greatest!!!" the truth is, these messages are just not effective.

Maria advises web marketers to ". . . wrap your advertising message within the soft cushions of an informative editorial piece of interest to your target audience." The key words in her message are "informative," "of interest" and "target audience," which imply, in turn, that you really have something to say, that you can say it in an interesting and engaging way and that you actually know who you should be speaking to.

Yeah, it's basic. But how often, in the pressure-cooker environment of sales, do we forget that:

The sales cycle is not the buying cycle,

Potential customers do not share our urgency, and that

We cannot annoy someone into liking us.

Take a moment. Read the article. What she has to say is worth repeating.

Perhaps the reticence of the in-house people can be attributed to lack of tools or know-how. But given the fact that as many as 90% of conversions take place after the online session (consumer electronics industry reports), it probably makes sense for the in-house guys to make every effort to acquire the capability to find out just how well their investment in PPC or SEO is paying off.

Beginning with the basics (e.g. how to use, but not abuse the the HTML <hl> tag convention, etc.), Steve explains the proper role and potential value of well-written headlines. Of particular interest is his summary explanation of Sean D’Souza's (Psychotactics.com) techniques for engaging the reader through teasers and unanswered questions.

If you had any doubt about the importance of getting your posts, or other Website copy off to a good start with a great headline, this article is for you.

We're a nation of gamers, like it or not. From our obsession with sports to the wildly popular televised (and online) world of Texas Hold'em, Americans are caught up in the fast action and immediate gratification that comes with winning and losing. Unlike the ambiguity of life experienced in real time, the compressed experience and immediate resolution of games allows us to experience closure . . . a scarce commodity in our uncertain times.

So it comes as no surprise that one of our nation's business schools, faced with declining enrollments, has come up with a game, uh, "business simulation" campaign, offering the winner a $70K ride. According to an article in The Wall Street Journal's CareerJournal, the University of Rochester's William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration intends to find out:

"Can an online game offering thousands of dollars in prizes reverse the slide in M.B.A. applications?"

In the article, we find out that "Simon's business-strategy contest resulted from a challenge put to students on the school's advisory council to concoct ways to improve the M.B.A. program." The students, who have grown up in the world of video games, and fully understand their draw, decided to capitalize on this knowledge. According to Cameron Oskvig, one of the students involved, those on the advisory council looked for "more creative ways to woo potential students beyond traditional advertising and information fairs. With the simulation game, he says, Simon can collect the names of dozens of promising applicants and follow up with personalized pitches. "

Like the folks at the Simon School, we'll be interested to see how well this strategy pays off. If it does, you can bet that other schools, particularly those challenged to increase enrollments, will follow suit.

Given yesterday's post on the state of Army recruiting, I couldn't resist picking up on a story in Up & Coming Magazine (quoting an article by Mark Mazzetti of the LA Times) which stated:

" . . . the Army is a brand, just like Tide and Chevrolet, and . . . the Army, like any other consumer product should be branded and marketed. The Army has apparently bought into that line of thinking and will spend more than $200 million dollars this year on recruitment advertising. It is our government's single largest advertising contract."

Why the big spend, you might ask, if our own Secretary of the Army says recruiting is not in a state of crisis? (See yesterday's post) Well, according to Mazzetti, at least part of the answer, in the words of Ira Teinowitz, who covers Army advertising for Advertising Age is this:

"The Army's brand name is being created outside the Army. It's not something controllable by the Army. It's certainly not something that's controllable by advertising."

I've always been taught that "brand" is an organization's promise to deliver value. And Teinowitz is right in saying that advertising can only go so far in influencing brand, which is created by collective belief (or disbelief) in an organization's promise.

Hopefully the Army's marketing campaign will reach beyond slick ads, and get to the heart of the matter. What potential recruits believe to be true or false about the Army, and equally important, what those who influence this group believe will critically influence the campaign. Having met with some of the really sharp people at the Pentagon who influence recruiting earlier in my career, I can't help but believe they have the collective intelligence to figure this out . . . and act accordingly.

For the sake of our troops bravely serving today, I hope that they figure it out soon.

For those looking to solve recruiting problems in the civilian world, I'd like to recommend that you check out Kevin Wheeler's excellent article in the September 7, 2005 ERE entitled The New Generation of Older Workers.

As Kevin reminds us:

"The workplace . . . is struggling to change old paradigms about work. Many firms encourage older workers to retire, believing them to be change resistant or not energetic enough for the rapidly changing workplaces of today. Many boomers are victims of these prejudices and frequently find themselves feeling inadequate."

" . . . research . . . indicates that older workers can be as creative and productive as younger workers, and often are more loyal. Older workers have more accumulated knowledge than younger workers and make well-reasoned and sound judgments based on a lifetime of learning. They can fill critical mid- and senior-level management positions, serve on boards of directors and advisory boards, and often act as lecturers at universities struggling to find enough professors."

Recruiters struggling to fill demanding positions, take note. You may have just exited your best candidate for the job.

"Recent Army recruiting problems don't constitute a crisis, and a number of initiatives are being implemented to bring recruiting numbers up, the secretary of the Army said.

Meeting end-strength goals for the Army is a function of both recruiting and retention, Secretary of the Army Francis J. Harvey said in a recent Pentagon Channel interview.

While recruiting has been suffering, retention goals are already being exceeded. High retention rates reflect the quality of soldiers in the Army and show their dedication to their mission, Harvey said. He noted that retention rates are highest in units that are deployed."

In previous posts, we've cheered the successes and examined the failures of our Armed Services as they've tried clever (and some not so clever) ways to improve their human capital conversion (recruiting) success rate. In a story reminiscent of hiring "fresh off the boat" Irish immigrants to fill the ranks of the Union Army during the War Between the States, we turn to an August 31, 2005 story in the New California Media, "a nationwide association of over 700 ethnic media organizations representing the development of a more inclusive journalism."

"Two weeks before graduation, with no definite future plans in mind, Wong (Ken Moon) met a young female Marine and agreed to be contacted by the Marine recruiter. Newton Dodson, a Marine recruiter based in San Leandro, met with Wong at the beginning of June. Just ten days after Dodson’s first meeting with Wong, he renewed Wong’s expired green card and promised him a speedy U.S. citizenship application.

The military offers non-immigrants expedited processing of visas, says Marti Hiken, co-chair of Military Law Task Force. The process can be as short as three years, compared to the normal five-year waiting period. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a 2004 legislation also allows members of the military to apply for naturalization for free. "

At the conclusion of the story we learn that Wong has decided that he's all for peace, against the war and seeking assistance to bail on the contract. Given a full exposition of the facts in the story, it's not clear who thought they were taking advantage of the situation - Wong or the recruiters. But the lesson for the military recruiter is clear ; be aggressive, be upfront and stay with the recruit during the critical period from sign-on to intake - when "buyer's remorse" is most likely to exert itself.

Wish We'd Said It First

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.